More than 16,000 students, teachers, industry professionals and others attended the SME and Stratasys-hosted conference this year, which was a showcase of career and technical education (CTE) students participating in SkillsUSA. Since 1965, the national nonprofit of students, teachers and industry leaders has worked to ensure America has a skilled workforce.

“SME created the Additive Manufacturing Contest for SkillsUSA with the main objective to attract more students to careers in manufacturing through an emerging technology and to advance an increasingly relevant technology as more companies are looking for workers to hire with skills in this technology,” the contest guidelines explain.

Images courtesy of SkillsUSA.

Thirty-four high school and post-secondary student teams competed for gold, silver and bronze medals, scholarships from the SME Education Foundation and a MakerBot Mini printer, according to a news release. Participants were tasked with designing and printing “a track piece (fixture) capable of moving a marble to a designated location after the ball rolled down a ramp. The fixture needed to connect to the ramp at certain connection points and remain stable for the duration of the test.” After designing the fixture, they built a prototype on a Stratasys 3D printer. Some participated in a mini-challenge that asked them to fix broken files within an STL file and present their findings to a panel of additive manufacturing professionals.